BOOKS BY AND ABOUT CHURCHILL

What follows is a small and very selective number from the vast Churchill literature.

BY CHURCHILL. (chron.)

The River War 2 vols. (Longman, 1899). Written before he was 25, this is far more than a military history of Britain’s campaigns in the Sudan; it is an even-handed and fair-minded account of an imperial war at the end of the 19th century. Lord Randolph Churchill 2 vols. (Macmillan, 1906). Devoted to a father scarcely devoted to him. The World Crisis 6 vols. (Butterworth, 1923-1931). Churchill’s history of WWI. Still a useful, authoritative source for the war. As usual, fair to his contemporaries. Churchill did not write “to even the score.” My Early Life (Butterworth, 1930) The young man as key to the older? In any case, a delightful memoir. Marlborough: His Life and Times. 4 vols. (Butterworth, 1933-1938). More devotion. The Second World War 6 vols. (Cassel, 1948-1953). Magisterial. Probably the most important and most cited memoir-history of WWII. Painting as a Pastime (Odham’s 1948) A History of the English-Speaking Peoples 4 vols. (Cassell, 1956-1958)

ABOUT CHURCHILL

Randolph Churchill and Martin Gilbert. Winston S. Churchill. 8 vols. (Various publishers, 1966-1988). The official biography. 7,285 pp. And there are 23 “companion”volumes of documents. Randolph Churchill wrote the first 2 vols. before his death in 1968. Martin Gilbert, Randolph’s young research assistant, took over and wrote the remaining 6 vols, becoming one of Britain’s leading historians in the process. He was also a prolific writer of Jewish history and the history of the state of Israel. Altogether he wrote 88 books. Gilbert died in 2015. Martin Gilbert. In Search of Churchill (1994). An entertaining account of Gilbert’s energy and ingenuity in Churchillian research. Martin Gilbert, Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years (Macmillan, 1981. An excellent, brief account of Churchill in the 1930’s with many good photos. William Manchester. The Last Lion. 3 vols. (Little Brown & Co., 1983-2012.) Manchester was an American journalist and historian who wrote many books on a wide variety of subjects. His 3-vol. biography is excellent and rivals that of Churchill and Gilbert for readability. Manchester died in 2004; the third vol. was finished by Paul Reid.

Andrew Roberts, Churchill: Walking with Destiny (Viking, 2018). 1,152 pp. Now considered by most students of Churchill to be the leading one-volume biography. Praised from many 2

quarters. John Charmley. Churchill: The End of Glory (Hodder and Stoughton, 1993). Charmley set off a heated controversy by arguing the counter-factual thesis that all would have turned out better if Churchill had concluded a separate peace with Hitler in 1940. John Lukacs. The Duel: The 88 Day Struggle between Churchill and Hitler (Ticknor and Fields, 1990). The dramatic story of the first 3 months of Churchill’s premiership.

From 2001 to 2005 there was published a wave of excellent books about Churchill:

Roy Jenkins. Churchill (Macmillan, 2001; Plume, 2002). The best biography of Churchill as party politician and parliamentarian. John Lukacs. Churchill: Visionary, Statesman, Historian. (Yale, 2002). John Keegan. Churchill. (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2003). John Keegan (1934-2012) was one of Britain’s leading military historians, especially on the theory of war. David Reynolds. In Command of History: Churchill Fighting and Writing the Second World War (Allen Lane, 2004) Geoffrey Best. Churchill and War. (Hambledon and London, 2005). Paul Addison. Churchill: The Unexpected Hero. (Oxford, 2005).

A beautiful and helpful reminiscence of Churchill is Violet Bonham Carter, Winston Churchill: An Intimate Portrait. (Harcourt Brace, 1965). The author was the daughter of Prime Minister Herbert Asquith and a friend of Churchill’s since 1906. She was a valiant and eloquent defender of Liberal principles and causes when the Liberals were internally divided and losing ground to Labour. Her memoir of Churchill’s career takes him only from 1906 to the early 1920’s, but not beyond; i.e. his Liberal period.

An excellent collection of critical articles by leading British historians is Richard Toye ed., Winston Churchill: Politics, Strategy, and Statecraft. (Bloomsbury, 2017).

For interesting thoughts on our author, see Andrew Adonis and Keith Thomas eds., Roy Jenkins: A Retrospective. (Oxford, 2004).

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